So this blog is inspired by a conversation I had with a patient 2 days ago.

A young 25 year old man came to the clinic with complaint of pain in tooth… he couldn’t sleep the whole night. He took the very first appointment in the morning and just wanted to get the tooth removed so that he never had to experience the excruciating pain again.

The first thing we did, was to make the tooth numb. After, 5 minutes, when the patient became comfortable. I asked him, “Why do you want to get the tooth removed? It’s a strong tooth, we can save it with root canal treatment.”

He replied, “doctor, I have 32 teeth. I don’t mind if I lose one tooth. I’ve heard, that root canal treatment is quite painful. I anyways have not been eating from that side since so long now.. I think I can easily manage without that tooth. Plus the multiple sittings. I really hate the dentist (OMG! That hurt :( ). I never go to a dentist.. Just because the pain was unbearable I came today.”

I guess he sensed the hurt on my face, he continued, “But doc, I must say, your clinic is not at all like I imagined a dental clinic to be. And I must say, when you numbed the tooth, I didn’t feel a thing.. But please remove my tooth now, I really need to get going!”.

I said, “You have 10 fingers, would you not mind losing one little finger?”.

Patient- “Oh no! I would never lose a finger.. it would disfigure my hand..”

I - “similarly, losing a tooth would disfigure your mouth.. the teeth are placed in fine balance with each other. Losing even one tooth disturbs the balance. The other teeth start moving into that place, you start losing bone in the area of lost tooth, food starts lodging. A whole cascade of ugly events is set in motion.. Besides, modern root canal treatments are absolutely PAINLESS. Most of our patients fall asleep while getting treatment done.. and your root canal treatment would be completed in this very appointment!”

P- Oh, I never thought that way.. I wouldn’t want to disfigure my mouth.. lets go with the treatment.

Just in 75 minutes, the root canal treatment was completed. And we received a wonderful compliment from our patient, “I didn’t realise that we could be so comfortable at a dentist’s place. I kept postponing my treatment in vain and bore the pain for such a long time..”

Do you also think that root canal treatment is painful or it is not worth saving your natural tooth?